The Orphan's Tales
#2484.12 adjusted 4.10 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 2 books Status Complete 2006–2007 Reading commitment Low Catherynne M. Valente Last reviewed 2026-10-29
Overview
Catherynne M. Valente’s two-volume work, illustrated by Michael Kaluta, is built like The Thousand and One Nights: a girl shunned as a demon lives alone in a sultan’s palace garden, her eyelids darkly inked with stories, and she tells them night after night to a curious young prince. Tale opens into tale, stories nested inside stories, ranging through original myths of witches, beast princesses, star-folk and monstrous gods, until the frame story itself comes due. The first volume won the James Tiptree Jr. Award and was a World Fantasy Award finalist, and the work as a whole won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.
Mythic fantasy, Fairy-tale retelling · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (2 works) counts toward ranking
The Orphan's Tales Catherynne M. Valente
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | In the Night Garden | 2006 | 1 | core | 4.03 (9,285 ratings) |
 | In the Cities of Coin and Spice | 2007 | 2 | core | 4.39 (2,984 ratings) |
Two volumes of nested tales told by an orphan girl in a sultan's garden.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Orphan's Tales? The Orphan's Tales's Core Canon is 2 books.
- What is the reading order for The Orphan's Tales? Publication order, starting with In the Night Garden. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is The Orphan's Tales finished? Complete (2006–2007).
- How much reading does The Orphan's Tales take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 2 Core Canon books).
- How is The Orphan's Tales ranked? #248 in this site's official ranking, based on 12,269 reader ratings across 2 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #248?
Ranked #248 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 4.12 across 2 core books.
- A smaller readership (12,269 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- 0.07 behind #247, Villains by Necessity.
- Below the top-10 average of 4.46.
Why explore this universe?
Highly rated · 2 books · Complete · 12k ratings · Ranks #248 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment mythic fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (2 Core Canon books)
- In the Night Garden (2006)
- In the Cities of Coin and Spice (2007)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- James Tiptree Jr. Award, 2006: won: In the Night Garden
- World Fantasy Award (Best Novel), 2007: finalist: In the Night Garden
- Mythopoeic Award (Adult Literature), 2008: won: The Orphan's Tales (series); Awarded to the two volumes together, In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice.
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Suggestions computed from what The Orphan's Tales and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi Historical fantasy / Mythic fantasy · Ongoing · Low commitment · 4.26
- The Winternight Trilogy Fairy-tale retelling / Historical fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 4.23
- Elements of Cadence Romantasy / Mythic fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 4.15
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue / Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil Mythic fantasy / Dark fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 4.13
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 4.12 across 12,269 ratings on 2 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Canon extension: Viriconium, The Orphan's Tales, The Secret Books of Paradys, The Drawing of the Dark accepted 2026-10-28
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-10-28
Rule: Core Canon = the two volumes, In the Night Garden (2006) and In the Cities of Coin and Spice (2007), each published in two internal books.